New Delhi: The government informed Rajya Sabha that the Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation contract has no denotation to the country’s affiliations with Iran.

Dinsha Patel, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas said ‘No’ while responding to a question on whether the US was coercing Delhi under the 123 concord to terminate import of natural gas from Iran through the planned Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline.

In a written reply, he said, “In the recently finalized India-US Agreement for cooperation in peaceful uses of nuclear energy, there are no references to any issues related to Iran.”

He also stated that the administration was pursuing natural gas import gas from Iran through the 7-billion-dollar pipeline.

“GAIL (India) Ltd and Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the public sector companies involved with the project, have spent about Rs 3.50 crore on technical and financial consultants appointed for the project,” he said.

To another question, Patel stated that Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has attained six novel oil and gas discoveries - two each in Assam and Gujarat and one each in Tripura and Andhra Pradesh - in May.

“Out of these, two oil and gas discoveries in Assam have been put on production as the required surface facilities were available near the discovery wells. Remaining four discoveries are at various stages of appraisal,” Mr. Patel added.